Time: 17:20. It seems to me that the puzzles are getting easier this week, so perhaps we can expect some record-breaking tomorrow. I still took my time over this, wanting to be sure I understood the wordplay. There is a scattering of rather less familiar words and phrases, though most should be within reach. The book may be more familiar to some as a 1971 film, but the enumeration gives you a decent lead.
I show definitions underlined in italics, and letters to be exclude in [square brackets]. I live in hope that the rest makes some sort of sense.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Some champagne and fresh soup, a great production (6,4) |
| MAGNUM OPUS – A double size bottle of champers, and and anagram (fresh) of SOUP. | |
| 7 | Willing to risk being dismissed by phone (4) |
| BOLD – Aural wordplay (by phone) with a cricketer’s dismissal being “bowled”. | |
| 9 | Wasteful for convict to lie about biting detective (8) |
| PRODIGAL – The innocuous for gives PRO, and a convict is a LAG, which you reverse (to lie about). Insert D[etective] I[nspector] | |
| 10 | Render unreadable poem on fence, ripping the edges (6) |
| ENCODE – Poem is ODE, placed on [f]ENC[e], with no edges. | |
| 11 | Withdraw medicine providing stimulant (6) |
| FILLIP – A reverse (withdraw) of a medicine PILL and IF from providing. | |
| 13 | Half of them held up beat (8) |
| THROBBED – Half of them is TH, add ROBBED for held up. | |
| 14 | I predict our team will be absorbed by next book (3,2-7) |
| THE GO-BETWEEN – By R. P. Hartley, not J. P. who penned “Fly Fishing”. SO, I is EGO, predict is BET, our team is WE (commonly in bridge scorecards) all sandwiched in THEN for next. | |
| 17 | Early morning call having gone off, she ran inside (4,3,5) |
| RISE AND SHINE – An anagram (gone of) of SHE RAN INSIDE. | |
| 20 | Campaign very English in importance (8) |
| MOVEMENT – V[ery] E[nglish] in MOMENT for importance, or significance. | |
| 21 | Metallic element not often used as poison (6) |
| CURARE – Also has medicinal value as a muscle relaxant. Fortunately one of the easier metals, copper for CU, and not often used supplies RARE. | |
| 22 | Nice friend finishes lace edging for mat (6) |
| TATAMI – Floor covering made from rice stalks common in Japanese homes. “Nice” directs you to the French version of friend, AMI, and TAT is hand made lace edging on fabric. Finishes is, I think, just a position indicator. | |
| 23 | Recall parent, worrying in case I forget (8) |
| AMNESIAC – Reverse MA for parent, and add an anagram (worrying) of IN CASE. | |
| 25 | Endlessly gnash teeth in unpleasant expression (4) |
| GRIN – The definition doesn’t quite feel right, though Chambers gives “To set the teeth together and withdraw the lips in pain, derision, etc”. To gnash teeth is to GRIND, from which the last letter is removed. | |
| 26 | Debtor absconding on the red-eye? (3-2-5) |
| FLY-BY-NIGHT – The red-eye in airline terms is a long distance overnight flight, probably in economy. | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 2 | Impenetrable expression on drunk (8) |
| AIRTIGHT – Slightly dubious about AIR for expression, but it’ll do. Drunk gives you the TIGHT bit. | |
| 3 | Indicate agreement with what makes herds hers? (3) |
| NOD – The difference between herds and hers is that there is NO D. | |
| 4 | This study suggests something to chew on (3,2) |
| MUG UP – If MUG UP were a cryptic clue, you would derive GUM, which is something to chew on without teeth. | |
| 5 | Feeble child’s loose coat (7) |
| PALETOT – Feeble is PALE, and child is TOT. The ensemble is exactly what the clue says it is, derived from French. | |
| 6 | Leader of assault was fast catching a big bird (9) |
| SPEARHEAD – Was fast give SPED, into which you insert A RHEA, which is a large (flightless) South American bird, which Chambers disconcertingly says is small. Compared to the similar ostrich, maybe. | |
| 7 | Sacked minister perhaps put money on senior lawyer (11) |
| BACKBENCHER – When a government minister is sacked, s/he joins colleagues behind the front bench in Parliament. To put money on is BACK, and a BENCHER is a senior member of one of the Inns of Court. | |
| 8 | Boy looking embarrassed to go up climbing frame (6) |
| LADDER – Boy is LAD, and if he’s looking embarrassed, he’s RED. Reverse that bit (to go up). | |
| 12 | Remained shocked after stage trickery (11) |
| LEGERDEMAIN – An anagram (shocked) of REMAINED tagged on to LEG for stage (of a race, for example). | |
| 15 | Confidence about a senior sculptor’s work (3,6) |
| BAS RELIEF – BELIEF for confidence embraces A S[enio]R | |
| 16 | Criminal skinned fish to overstep boundaries (8) |
| ENCROACH – I assume the criminal is a FENCE, from which we remove the outer letters. ROACH is a freshwater fish. | |
| 18 | Professional in practice getting Romeo to replace two lines (7) |
| ACTUARY – In practice suggests ACTUALLY, in which you replace the two L[ines] with a NATO R[omeo] | |
| 19 | I’m surprised I can wear extra short fabric (6) |
| MOHAIR – I’m surprised gives |
|
| 21 | Shrewd Scots are not able to broadcast (5) |
| CANNY – Aural wordplay (broadcast) of Scots CANNAE for cannot. | |
| 24 | To speed over snow is the end of so many Russians (3) |
| SKI – Rather a lot of Russian men end their surnames with -SKI | |
July Christie, Alan Bates (rumpypumpy had with), and a first outing for Edward Fox, I think — as a result of which he got the gig for the Jackal. I didn’t find this particularly easy and finished in 27’01”. MOHAIR and GRIN were the last two in, and like everyone else I was hesitant about GRIN because one normally thinks of it as a happy face. But I acknowledge one can wear an unpleasant grin too. I had GURN on my mind, but could’t find a way for it to work. Many thanks.
Despite the doubts about GRIN which have been mentioned, and ignorance of red-eye, no major problems until I became so becalmed on MOHAIR/TATAMI/MOVEMENT that I used aids and finished in 38 minutes.
15:50 – NHO of PALETOT and didn’t parse MOHAIR before stopping the clock. Didn’t give GRIN much thought before moving on but agree that it is an eccentric definition. Otherwise it seemed a typically workmanlike mid-week offering.
Brisk start with the top half, slowed down in the south, and then a bit of grind for ENCROACH, MOVEMENT and ACTUARY, after I finally got round to parsing MOHAIR and ruling out CURIUM. Slowest of the week for me so far (if only by a minute or so) at 22:56, but glad I persevered and impatience didn’t kick in.. might be saving up that joy for tomorrow. Good puzzle – thanks setter and Z for the entertainment.
28 mins. This felt a bit fairer than yesterday’s with regard to the NHOs, although I’m sure we’ve had TATAMI before this year. PALETOT was a new one to me, as was CURARE (ish). Oh, who knows anymore. It’s all just words words words forever until we die of gout. LOI MOVEMENT, COD to MUG UP.
Quite enjoyed that, with only a couple of NHOs – paletot and bencher – but lots of great cryptic definitions to offset them.
The Ski Patrol were 3 Polish (?) blokes in Red Dog. Not Russian, from dubious memory.
LOI by far was ACTUARY, completely stuck, stepped away, and suddenly it popped into mind. The greatest short story ever written – The Hammer of Evil by John Sladek – features an actuary as its main protagonist. Who lives longer, a buddhist or a bricklayer? (Might not have been buddhist).
Around 50 mins as I got stuck on today’s NHOs PALETOT CURARE & TATAMI. Eventually worked them out but it was like pulling teeth.
Like some others, didn’t really get GRIN for “unpleasant expression”
My favourites were the two long clues.
Thanks Z and setter.
For GRIN, Collins has “a snarl or grimace.”
30:34. Good fun, with vocab that was a bit quirky somehow. I liked the BOLD and CANNY homophones. COD to CURARE.
For the second day running, the “Too many requests” error message blocked access to this site earlier in the day
Wrestled this one to the ground after nailing some tricky wordplay. Never heard of the TAT in TATAMI ; don’t think MUG UP quite works and I don’t care what some say, GRIN just doesn’t convey unpleasantness.
35 minutes – enjoyable puzzle.
Didn’t know Tatami but have learnt over the years that Tat can mean lace and that Nice can indicate a French connection – so I am learning!
My COD to Magnum Opus.
30:13. very enjoyable, especially getting to grips with the last couple, MOHAIR and MOVEMENT which took quite some unpicking. NHO PALETOT but it was fairly well signposted. thanks!
After concluding that there was no way I’d ever finish this, with about 3 clues in, including the very dodgy SKI, the answers started dropping in one by one and momentum was established. I put in the crossing letters for GRIN, with the same reservations as others. Although I had THE GO-BETWEEN early, it took forever to parse. I’m sure we’ve had TATAMI at least 3 times in the last few years – certainly it was familiar to me only from crosswords, though PALETOT, LOI, was NHO. I was expecting more unknowns than there actually were and ended up enjoying it quite a bit.
Is this site down?